


Bit by bit, every day

by vonherder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), Mentions of attempted suicide, Parent Death, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vonherder/pseuds/vonherder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard Stark lived another seven years after the car crash that should have taken his life.</p><p>
  <i>So we just sat there. Our heads bent towards each other like flowers in the small hours of the morning, while light wandered in like a warning that time is passing and you right along with it...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bit by bit, every day

**Author's Note:**

> First, I'm sorry.
> 
> Second, if you click the below link and aren't currently aware of what it is, let this be a warning. It hurts. So, so much.
> 
> I had a thought and I happened to be listening to [_Tragic Turn of Events/Move Pen Move_ by Dan Mangan and Shane Koyczan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHZ4xoNvcY8) at the time. So. This happened. And I'm sorry. (Title and summary from _Move Pen Move_ )
> 
> If I missed a warning, let me know and I will fix that pronto.

Tony dropped his bag just inside the door and slowly entered the room. Machines whirred and beeped at him like they always did, not one of them doing more than monitoring and managing. They weren't helping, there was no time left for that. 

On the bed, Howard looked frail, hands gnarled and limp at his sides, useless. 

He swallowed. He'd only been there for the tail-end of a slow battle that had been lost long ago. He could count each time he'd actually seen Howard in person since the crash. He could look back at them now, each moment a vivid mess of symptoms and early signs of sickness that he had refused to see or acknowledge at the time.

He shook his head, he should have known. Should have noticed. He hadn't seen Howard in nearly four years, missed most of his calls in favour of work he'd never truly wanted to inherit, not like this, not yet. He could have come home, but home was full of ghosts and unfinished conversations that had trailed off in the wake of an exit or argument. 

“Anthony?” Howard turned his face to the door, weary and worn thin. He blinked slowly, frowning his stern frown, “Are you there?”

“Yeah, pops. I'm here,” he said, slowly coming forward until Howard could make him out. The sickness had taken everything from him. Looking back over the handful of phone calls they'd shared in the past years, he could see it; Howard would often repeat himself or get confused, stump himself on simple tasks and calculations. Tony had taken the calls with all of the patience he'd extend a drunk, never once imagining something worse.

He swallowed and settled into the chair at Howard's side, hesitantly taking one the useless hands into his own.

They were strange, curious things. So much like the hands he remembered, scarred and marred same as his own. Weathered and blunt, but so deft and quick, the hands of a master of his craft. Or, they had been. The disease had left them like useless, gnarled roots of an upturned tree.

Howard said nothing, lips forming a thin line as he trembled with effort and pain. 

He gently ran his thumb across Howard's knuckles, thinking back over the weeks. He hadn't been home long, maybe five months and a handful of change. He hadn't even known that Howard had been confined to a wheelchair for the last two and a half years, so to get the call—he had hated to think about it. He'd never asked and Howard had never offered an explanation, but the nurses and doctors all told him he'd thrown himself from the chair, tried to end it all with a trip down a flight of stairs. He had hated to think about it because he couldn't imagine Howard ever doing such a thing, couldn't picture a situation bad enough that he would do such a thing. He was certain it had been an accident. He was a Stark, he had surely been trying to prove a point, to prove the sickness wrong.

And, yet. He knew it now, the truth of it all. It hadn't occurred to him—the toll the disease had taken—until the first time Howard had nodded to the bottle of morphine on the shelf and asked for help. It hadn't, until that moment, occurred to him that perhaps Howard had given up already, that it was the rest of the world that was trying to prove a point. 

He stared at the hand cradled in his own and tried to imagine it, losing his entire self. The crash had taken Maria and then the disease had taken everything else. He imagined being confined to a bed, still aware and awake and sharp, but without the strength to make much use of it all. Without the strength to stand. Hands that wouldn't cooperate, couldn't grip or work. Eyes that had steadily begun to fade and blur, until he was left looking at the world through fogged glass. Would he do much fighting if he couldn't even speak some days? If woke from pain that no drug could soothe or shook so hard that the hospital bed would rattle and creak like the floorboards of an abandoned house in a wind storm? 

“What are you here for if you're just going to sit there?”

Tony looked up at him, unsure. “I don't know what to do,” he admitted. He never did, hadn't known what to do since that phone call. Outside of the hospital room, he'd been drifting in and out on instructions and suggestions. You should come quickly, you should call the lawyers, you should pack a bag, you should stay for the next few days, it won't be long. “Tell me what to do.”

Howard was silent a moment, before he stiffly lifted their joined hands, “Come here. Closer.”

He stood and closed the distance between them, sitting on the edge of the bed. He bent a little closer to Howard, close enough that he hoped he could be seen. “Tell me what to do, dad. Tell me how to help.”

Howard just stared up at him, cloudy eyes tracking across his features, taking in what he could. His hand trembled in Tony's.

“You look so much like her,” he said, not quite smiling. “Come a little closer.”

Tony bit his lip, squeezing Howard's hand as tight as he dared, and bent forward. He took Howard's other hand when it had been raised as high as possible, and Tony pressed it to his cheek. 

Howard's not-quite-smile grew a little, “You need to shave, son.”

Tony laughed, a mournful sound. A mess of questions began to bubble in his mind, when's and how's, why's and why didn't you's. How do I do this alone? How can I make you proud? How can you forgive me?

Howard's gaze softened and Tony clamped his mouth shut, never having intended to speak any of those thoughts. He glanced away, settling both of Howard's hands into his lap. 

“You can't go yet.”

“You'll do just fine, son.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. “I don't know what to do,” he said again, desperate. 

“What are you working on?” he asked instead. “Walk me through it.”

And he did, like he had nearly every day since he'd arrived, translating blueprints and schematics into something that Howard could still use. He worked as a chalkboard for the man, a calculator, so that he could still be of use. Could still work and create and improve. 

Most days, anyway. 

With tears streaming down his cheeks, Tony spoke on, detailing the latest design of some missile he'd been working on. With each word, watching Howard's eyes slowly close and his breathing slow, as morning light wandered in.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry... 
> 
> You can bother me on tumblr maybe? http://alderevonherder.tumblr.com/


End file.
